


Could you just...

by Oparu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8118181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: Total fluff in which Killian holds a baby and Regina looks for paperwork and both of them talk about happy endings. (Dragon Queen and Captain Swan background, Hooked Queen friendship)





	

“Don’t, you shouldn’t–”

Of course, she does hand the infant over, and then his arm is full of baby. Tiny, warm, _baby_. He cradles her against his chest, acutely conscious of his hook and how sharp it is. How metal. How unlike the softness of her skin. 

“She’s half-asleep,” Regina promises, setting down her bag and digging through for some kind of paperwork. “And fed, so she really won’t be any trouble. It’ll just be a minute.” 

In her little suit, the baby shifts against his chest and he’s so afraid he doesn’t want to move. What if he drops her, or she cries? Swan knows what to do with babies, she’s so good with her brother, he really shouldn’t be holding this one, she’s barely a fortnight old and so tiny he only needs one arm to hold her, though he has the other there, just in case. 

“Dammit.” Regina sighs, hands on her hips. “It’s in my office.”

Whatever it is, is important. “Shall we go back?” 

“We have to.” Regina picks up her briefcase again, then shakes out her shoulders. She peers over at him and and the very soft little baby and smiles, half-exhausted, all proud. “She’s really very sweet, if you’re holding her. When you set her down, then she makes the most piteous noises.” 

“She doesn’t scream?” Little Baelfire’s namesake has no problems making his displeasure known. 

“Not really, perhaps it’s a dragon thing?” Regina shrugs, then takes a step closer and guides his hands so he’s holding the baby a little less like a man trying to keep her from drowning. “Like that. There you go. Mal says she likes to hear your heartbeat. Henry was so different, more alert, I guess. This one could really sleep all day, like her mother.”

“Having a child is no easy task,” he says, shocked by Regina’s lack of sympathy for her partner, but then she smiles and winks at him. 

“And she gets up every few hours to feed this little one, who eats like a dragon already,” Regina murmurs. “I still like to tease Mal, especially when she’s too sleepy to fight back. You never taunt Emma?”

He follows Regina back to her office, the little dragon curled against his chest. “I will admit to having my ways of turning the screws, certainly.” Baby dragon snuffles while Regina digs in her desk and he sways, because perhaps she likes a little motion. Staring down at her, all dark eyes and dark hair in a red-pink little face, he wonders if he sees the Maleficent in her. Maybe the ears? So much of the little dragon looks like Regina, that he can’t help wondering that a child of his and Emma’s would have the misfortunate to look like him. 

“Here it is!” Regina finishes, tucking that sheet of paper into her briefcase. “Finally.”

“It’s all right,” he says, only half paying attention because the little dragon’s eyes are open, and staring up, as if she’s trying to figure out who he is. “We’re not in a hurry. Emma and Maleficent will be at the school.”

“Emma driving her was so useful, thank you.” Regina walks to him, smiling. “She likes you.” 

“How can you tell?”

“Look at her eyes, how they're so fixed on you.” Regina tightens her coat, doing up the zipper. “She has a blanket in the car, and her car seat’s in the cloakroom.”

He barely hears any of that because her eyes are still locked with his, deep and unfocused, but beautiful, full of wonder. 

“When you two are ready,” Regina teases. “No hurry.”

“Sorry.”

“You can’t help it, when she looks at you like that, you’re doomed.”

“It’s something I’ve found happens to women I love,” he says without even thinking. He meant Emma, and Milah, not this baby, she’s not– He wouldn’t– “It’s just, you don’t think their eyes are any different than they were, and then they’ve swallowed you, utterly.”

“Emma?” Regina asks, smiling through a yawn.

“Aye.”

Regina brushes his arm, then rests her hand on the baby’s back. Something passes through her face, a kind of gratitude, perhaps. Hearing of his love for Emma makes her smile all the more. 

“Don’t look at her too long, she’ll draw you in.” She locks up the office and he follows her, swaying with the little dragon pressed against his chest. When they arrive at the cloakroom, the baby’s little indignant sound as Regina takes her to set her in the carseat tugs at his heart. 

“She does like you.”

“Perhaps she just dislikes the contraption you’re strapping her in.” 

Regina nods, humming a little. Emma hums to little Neal, when he’s teething or upset. He’s harder to soothe now that he’s older. Perhaps he understands more, yet still not enough for speech. She strokes baby’s little cheek with her hand and beams at him.  “If anyone had asked me, before I knew about this little one, I would have said I was happy to be done with all of this. Henry’s in high school, so carseats and strollers, teething, screaming babies in the middle of the night, all of that was behind me.”

“And yet, here you are.” He reaches out and touches baby’s little fist and her tiny fingers wrap around his. His chest is suddenly very warm and tight. “And you’re happy.”

“More so than I deserve,” Regina starts and he looks up from the baby’s blissful little face. 

“Emma says I need to stop blaming myself for the past, perhaps that’s something you should also consider. Being happy, is not about deserving, love, it’s about appreciating what you have, which it seems you do.”

“What I have appreciates me,” she says, and her smile falters. “Which–”

“Is a battle all its own, aye,” he agrees. “A worthy one, don’t you think?” 

Regina smiles down at the tiny dragon baby’s sleepy face and then over at him. “When did you buy into the hope speeches?”

“Considering my position as the paramour of Snow White’s daughter, it might be a hazard.” 

“Quite.” They stare down at the baby together, watching her eyelids close, then open, then close again with the littlest of sighs. 

“Watching something like this, it seems appropriate. Perhaps when we aren’t aware of it, hope finds us. On dragon’s wings, or in a yellow bug. Hope might be at its best when unexpected.” 

Regina nods and her eyes have the same depth as the baby’s, sweet and brown and dark. “I think you’re right.”

He laughs and looks around for a witness before he grins down at the sleeping baby. “If you could remember you heard that, poppet, you’d be the most wondrous of dragons.” 


End file.
